neonleonb

I'm currently in Tennessee, after a last-minute trip to Boston. In case you hadn't read it on my mom's health blog, she died on Tuesday night shortly after we'd all arrived. We didn't really see it coming--she'd been in the hospital with a fever before, she'd had infections before, but this time the combination of cancer and pneumonia overwhelmed her. None of us realized it was so dire until the last minute, and we arrived at the hospital just in time to see her. She, however, was not awake, and she probably never realized that this was the end.

Her funeral is on Tuesday. After that, I'll be back in Berkeley finishing up my dissertation.

No, really, there's a German AIDS awareness campaign that equates AIDS with Hitler. It's NSFW, but highly awesome. There are some other mass murdering dictator posters, but Hitler's is the most striking to me.

Dan Savage has written a very good post about why opposing health care for all is anti-family. I was impressed, and decided to share it here.

I've begun suffering from some repetitive stress ailment in which my right wrist is strained when I angle it right. I've finally figured out that it's from typing--all that reaching to the right for the damn important keys. Enter, backspace, and shift all require that I move my wrist pretty severely, and, especially when programming, those keys get hit quite a lot. I could move my whole hand, instead of just my wrist, I guess, but that's really slow.

Obviously, the right solution is one of those Kinesis keyboards that puts the control keys under your thumbs. I mean, seriously, that's obviously the right design. Why am I wasting two thumbs on one space bar?! Unfortunately, spending $300 on a keyboard seems a little excessive, especially since I don't need all the ergonomic features, just the important keys under my thumbs.

Do you happen to know of a keyboard that does this but doesn't cost an arm and a leg?

EDIT: In the mean time, I'm attempting to get around this by mapping some keys. Caps-lock is now backspace, and the damn Windows key is now a return key. And I'll try to use left-shift, if I can remember. That should be much better on my wrist for now.

2 Sundays ago, I did a fund-raising 5K run for Multiple Myeloma, in honor of my mother. I was pleased with my running (I didn't stop to rest, this time), but more importantly, I raised an astonishing amount of money on my mom's behalf.

I hadn't expected other people to donate much (I really do hate asking for donations), but the total donation was $370! (No, that's not $370 factorial, though that would be an impressive donation.) Thank you very much for your help! That, and not the running, was the real triumph. I am astonished and impressed to get so much support for Ellen.

Thank you!

In other news, I also went on a hike to Mt. Diablo. It was very nice, and pleasantly green for California. I'd recommend it to anyone. Here are a few of the better pictures.

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As you may have heard, my mother has the sort of bone cancer known as "multiple myeloma." I'll be running in a 5K fund-raising race on Sunday, April 5. I always feel awkward asking for donations, but I thought I should at least inform people of the opportunity. If you want to help support multiple myeloma research, you can donate through my mom's team here: http://321cure.themmrf.org/site/TR/RaceforResearch/General?team_id=1500&pg=team&fr_id=1030

EDIT: To donate, click the "join team" link on that page.

It was pointed out that I haven't posted in a while. That's true.

Grandfather

My paternal grandfather died last week. I didn't know him that well, and that's mostly his fault. I asked him about his life, but rarely would he tell any stories. He was an army clerk in WWII, and he got to fly over the Himalayas in an army plane, but that's about all I heard of it. Only this weekend, meeting his friends, did I find out that he had friends. Apparently he was a pool shark and a skilled golfer, in addition to the avid TV-watcher I knew.

At least I got to see lots of family. I saw my cousin (my only first cousin) for the first time in a decade. I met relatives I didn't know I had. I walked around Pittsburgh with my grandmother and learned Pgh history with my uncle. The biggest shame was that my mother wasn't there, since she was getting treatment in Nashville.

Mother

Speaking of my mother.... I think I mentioned she has multiple myeloma, a sort of bone cancer. She first found out about it three years ago, and after a marrow transplant from her brother David, she was okay on maintenance drugs for quite a while. However, this fall, the indicators of the cancer began to rise, and since then she has been through an increasingly taxing series of treatments. She hasn't been in remission since then, despite going through the standard state-of-the-art treatments, including lose-your-hair hardcore chemo.

And now, despite her recent treatments, the protein they use to measure the cancer has begun rising again. The chemo has damaged her marrow, reducing her blood cell counts, so she needs platelets and whole blood transfusions, but still the cancer keeps coming back. Now she's looking into trials and other programs, including at hospitals outside of Tennessee. This has turned out to be much harder than any of us hoped--there are stories of people who had much simpler treatments and went into nice long remissions, and I guess she's not that lucky. But she and my dad keep fighting and trying all the options, and if anyone can beat this, she can.

Me

Meanwhile, my life goes on. I go to Pittsburgh for a funeral and end up attending swing dancing with live music. Here in Berkeley, I'll have a busy weekend, with social events, dancing, hang gliding, and a visiting potential student. Maybe I'll even squeeze in some work on my thesis.

I'm back in Berkeley after nearly 4 weeks in Tennessee. It was a pleasantly long break, and I did only the bare minimum of work. I cooked a lot with my brother Sam, even making fudge with my mom's guidance. That was useful for my parents, in part because....

Now, I should probably tell you that my mom has multiple myeloma, a sort of marrow cancer. I've been avoiding telling people because I don't want them to see me as needing their support. I mean, what can people do? But it turns out they can do a lot, in particular taking care of my guinea pig Chester while I was gone. Thanks, Chung Hay, Todd, Cheryl, and Ryan!

So, my cooking was useful because my mom, with her low blood counts, wasn't allowed to use a knife, and that means my dad has been doing most of the cooking, so our help with that was probably useful.

In any case, my mom is at Vanderbilt having another round of chemotherapy right at this moment. She says the side effects aren't as bad as she'd been warned, and the main result is a lot of tiredness. The worst part is the low immune system and clotting afterward--she was in the hospital for 1-2 weeks after her last chemo because she had a mysterious fever. And it made her miss her brother's wedding, but at least she got to take part via Skype. It was kind of amazing that she could be there with us in a way. (The wedding was wonderful, by the way.)

Now that I'm back in Berkeley, I'm aiming to graduate by the end of the summer. I think I can do it, but it will require substantially more effort than I've been putting in so far. For the forseeable future, I'm officially declaring Sunday a weekday. Onward and upward!

Never has this user icon, of Terry Pratchett's Death, been quite so appropriate. As Death says in one of Pratchett's books, "There is no justice. There's just me." That's ironic, since one of the great joys I find in Pratchett's books is that his characters do meet their just rewards.

But today, I am an arbiter of life and death, and money. Louis, my 5.5-year-old guinea pig, has a kidney stone and will die without surgery that will cost $600-900. If it was several thousand dollars, it would be right out, and if it was a couple hundred, I'd do it without hesitation. But he's a middle-aged pig, and I'm not sure I can justify spending a month's rent on him, and frankly I don't even want to have guinea pigs when I graduate. That's a lot of cold reasoning, and I know I'm kind of horrible for it, but I think I've made up my mind to not get the surgery. It's hard to look at him and know that I've sold him out for 1 month's rent, that I have held his little life in my hands and cast it aside, that he would live, but for me.

In general, I believe that if you can't afford to care for your pet, you can't afford to get a pet, and I've been good about taking care of them. But there's obviously a line somewhere, and this surgery is in a terrible gray area, and I think I've chosen the heartless but reasonable option.

Edit: the proper quote is, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds," from the Bhagavad Gita, brought to me by Oppenheimer's statement at the first nuclear test. In this case, the proper modification is, "I am become Death, destroyer of pigs."

Chester is doing much better. He eats and drinks, he's not lethargic, and his eyes aren't crusty anymore. It's not clear what it was, or what made him better, but I'm to keep giving him antibiotics (Baytril) for the rest of the week. I've stopped hand-feeding him (which he didn't mind so much, but which was a hassle) or giving him subcutaneous fluids (which he hated).

Over the past 2 days, I noticed Chester was drinking nearly nothing, and he wasn't eating much at all. He also seemed to be less active. It can be hard to tell, since he has massive amounts of hay to eat, so I can't really tell how much he's had, and maybe I just see him when he's sleepy, but it seemed pretty clear. I concluded that he almost surely had tooth problems--that's what his cagemate died of.

I took him to the vet today, and she said his teeth were fine. She did find a giant cyst under his neck, though--she used a syringe to take the fluid, and she'll do some lab-work to see if that identifies what's up. In the mean time, I'm to give him subcutaneous fluids (from an IV bag--I'm like a guinea pig nurse!), antibiotics, and hand-feed him.

But after getting home, he's been doing pretty well. He's eating and seems happy, so I'm hopeful. Maybe the cyst made swallowing painful, so he didn't eat much, and now that it's drained he won't have any problems. There remains a question as to what caused the cyst, but hopefully the lab work will identify that. And if he continues eating this well, I may not bother hand-feeding him--he does it much more efficiently than I ever could.

In any case, it's been a bit of an emotional roller-coaster. First, I was convinced the prognosis was bad, since he seemed to be following Milo's course, and Milo didn't make it. Then, the vet found it wasn't an obvious problem, and after she drained his cyst he started bleeding a fair bit. But now he seems to be okay--we'll see how it turns out.

We (a bunch of mostly grad students mostly in the 4th year) went on a hike to a waterfall on Sunday. It was on the North peninsula near Stinson Beach. (I'm familiar with Stinson Beach since that's the landing zone for hang gliders launching from Mt. Tamalpais.)

It was a pleasant hike with greenery and little lakes/ponds with no streams in or out. I presume they're groundwater-fed. At the end, we had to climb down this steep crumbling rock face.

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Alex, who broke his arm hang gliding a few months ago, also attempted the climb. Here you can see him:



Seconds after I took that picture, the rocks under his feet slipped, putting weight on his left arm, which was apparently not fully healed, and fractured it again. Amazingly, he didn't do any of the things I'd have done (e.g. screamed, yelled for help), and simply said he'd broken it.

Unfortunately, this accident occurred at the very farthest point of the hike--it was another 4 miles or so back to the car, and then an hour and a half back to Berkeley. Alex held up amazingly well. When he wasn't thinking of all the hassle this accident would cause him, he was downright cheerful, and he scarcely seemed to feel any pain. He set a comfortably brisk pace back to the car, without any of the whining I'd have done. Zach made a very nice makeshift sling out of Jessica's long-sleeved shirt (I wanted to do something of the sort, but I had no idea how).

Alex went to the ER, where they took X-rays and put a splint on his arm. Today he's going to go see the same doctors who fixed his arm after the hang-gliding accident.

This all seems rather matter-of-fact, but that's more or less how it played out. Alex stated what happened, Louis helped him negotiate up to stable footing, we arranged a sling, and walked back.

My Body Mass Index is 24.4. For reference, normal is 18.6-25. Apparently, I'm nearly overweight. Um, what?

Of course, I am reassured by the statement: "If you're muscular, your BMI may overestimate body fat." I must be muscular, then!

Last Friday I slept all day because I was suffering from food poisoning. It started out relatively mild, but eventually I vomited, and I was weak for much of Saturday, too. I was too sick to use my first SF Sketch Fest ticket! Then, having missed 5 meals in 2 days, I was noticeably weak at hang gliding on Sunday.

The annoying thing was that I couldn't figure out what food I'd had was contaminated. I shared almost all my food with other people that day, and the stuff I didn't share was very fresh leftovers (18-hours old).

However, I think I've figured it out. I had some fruit from a tray (which other people had also), and one of the fruits was greenish and tasted like mango. I concluded that it was a very unripe mango. Now, I'm allergic to touching mangoes, but not to eating them. That said, I think maybe this mango was so unripe that it contained some of whatever chemical makes me allergic to mango skin. I'll have to be careful to eat only fully ripe mangoes in the future.

What's in my belly? I know it sounds silly, but my belly is mysteriously large. It's been that way for years. I don't think it's just fat. You can pinch a little fat on my belly, but not a whole lot. I'm clearly a few pounds overweight, but it's really not much. Here's a topless picture of me from May to prove it (just what you've been hoping for, I'm sure). I seem to be either wiping the water from my face or praying.



So. There I don't look too bad. You can see there's a little fat on my belly, but no potbelly. But if I relax my belly, it sags out quite a bit, into a full-fledged potbelly--except I don't know what's in there! My mom asserted that I just have untoned abs. If I got more exercise, then my belly wouldn't sag that way. When I asked the doctor, she said more or less, "yeah, sure, that's probably it." So for now, that's the official consensus.

Personally, I'm not blown away by that explanation. I don't think most people have potbellies unless they tighten their stomachs. I think there's some mysterious substance filling my abdomen.

But maybe I'm just full of shit.

The USDA is clearly off its ass. I wanted to see what sort of luxury foods (tasty fats and sugars) it thought I could afford. It says I can eat 510 calories of fats & sugars, including 10 teaspoons of oil, every day. Ok, fine; I think I'm doing okay, then. But it also says, "Dry Beans & Peas = 3 1/2 cups weekly".

Now, I don't know how many dry beans and peas you eat, but I can tell you that I made split pea soup this week. In a large crock pot of split pea soup, I used about 2 1/4 cups of dried peas; this is about 4 meals of soup. WTF? At that rate, I need to eat dry beans and peas at least 6 or 7 times a week, as the heart of a meal each time! And I have to admit, this is about as many dried beans and peas as I'm likely to consume in a single week. The idea that any American (other than a vegan or a bean farmer) eats that many legumes is nuts.

Now, one possibility is that they don't mean dried peas, but rather peas that have already absorbed water. But they say "dry beans & peas," so I think they must mean the dried ones.

I am a wuss. My back hurts (not sure why)--not a lot, but a steady ache--and it's really annoying and hard to concentrate.
I couldn't do anything if I was in real pain. Note to self: do not become a burn victim!

I had an odd dentistry experience yesterday, though it started ordinarily enough.  It had been years since I last saw a dentist, and I was experiencing some tooth pain (probably sinus-related), so I was in dire need of a dentist.  So, I went to the campus dental insurance page, used their MetLife link to look up a recommended dentist, and arranged an appointment.

So, when I arrived at the dentist's office yesterday, I was surprised to find that the dentist was operating out of his house. There were no dental assistants, or other patients, just a 60-year-old man with a dentistry setup in his house. There was a home office (which had a typewriter but no computer!) and a room that had the usual dentist's chair setup. It was a bit cramped, and not too tidy, but it seemed clean. I felt quite odd; this was not at all what I expected a dentist's office to look like. I mean, the guy had a diploma on the wall, was recommended by MetLife, and had all the usual tools (including an autoclave for sanitizing tools). Still, I was nervous enough to plan what I would do if he tried to chloroform me and take me off to his secret sex lair.

But abduction fears aside, the appointment went as usual. He inspected my teeth, and cleaned them (but didn't floss them, which was not a problem, since I'm a good flosser). He poked at the grooves in my teeth with a metal implement, just like my past dentist (but maybe a bit less thoroughly), and announced that I had no signs of cavities. He even X-rayed my teeth and developed the film there, confirming I had no hidden cavities between my teeth. He was friendly and seemed nice.

However, I'm not quite decided if I'll visit him again. The setup was odd enough that it made me a bit uncomfortable. I think I would feel better in an ordinary office with a secretary and assistant, but all the same, the guy did his job well as far as I could make out.

I recently got sick with a cold.  It lasted longer than I expected, affecting me for most of a week.  At first, I was leery of taking any sort of medicine (my family didn't do that much), but once I experienced how easy it is to fall asleep after taking nighttime cold medicine, I was glad to dose myself.

I'm finally getting better, but today my cold harmed me in a surprising new way.  I had been preparing for a project presentation.  I was worried that my cold would somehow keep me from completing my project, for instance by preventing me from staying up late to work on it.  However, I got the presentation done with no need for sleepless nights.  But today, while presenting, I just kept coughing.  It was a decent presentation, except for all the coughing.  I don't even know what happened; I talked to my parents on the phone this morning for about 20 minutes without any such problems.  Maybe it was all the cold air as I walked to class?  In any case, it was annoying.

In other news, I think I've spread the cold to Kate.  We both tried not to infect her, but we evidently failed.  I hope it doesn't bother her too much.  I didn't enjoy it at all.

I visited the doctor just for a regular checkup, and because I have a few questions.  (For example, I seem to have tonsil liths--they sound disgusting, but I only cough one up every 6 months or so.)

While I was there, she suggested that I get a cholesterol test done.  So, I did, and the results are good:

Type	count (mg/dL)
Cholesterol	130
Triglyceride	64
HDL	41
LDL	76

Apparently, this is all normal, but I would benefit from increasing my HDL level.  The main method is aerobic exercise, so I guess I need to play DDR more often.  Also, eating "good" fats (avocado, peanut, olive) should help with that, too.  Apparently drinking a glass of alcohol every day should help, too, so maybe Kate and I need to get into the habit of having red wine with dinner.